Will the summer holiday start or stop today?

Well that's the question of the day. For once not related to the weather (we can't control nor influence it) or about an official holiday! The question is more focused on the grades the oldest son will get today. These will more or less make or break his summer holiday!

First let's start with the grades of the youngest, who is still in primary. Well he did drop 6% which isn't good at all but his grade is still good enough. He had the following problems this year. Starting from thinking that he does know it and doesn't have to study. So he didn't study. At least looking at the books for 5 minutes (if he does reach 5 minutes) can't be catalogued as study in my opinion. Secondly he has a very weak class. The speed of the class is more or less based on the lesser students in the class. So he gets bored form time to time. The teachers did gave him extra tasks but for a kid of 11 this does feel more as a punishment than as a motivation.
He was disappointed by his results. So that is a good sign. He is motivated to score higher grades in his last year of primary.

Now, let's move to the person for who the question in the title is. He will get his grades this evening. What better to receive your grades together with your parents at school. There is no way to hide. As as normal, I am more stressed that he or the wife is. I do fear that his grades maybe won't be good enough to pass. I did some calculations yesterday to see how his grades are without the finals exams. And it should be possible to pass. But he had some big problems in the past school year and probably his attitude won't help him.

In total he did miss 7 to 8 weeks of school. Which is a lot. Almost 20% in total. Several reasons for that. 2 weeks missed due to corona and 5 to 6 weeks due to his knee surgery. For sure these weeks missed by his surgery did kick in. 4 weeks in a row not being able to go to school did kill his motivation. It was hard for him to get back to school and study. Missing 4 weeks in a row is a big problem. Not only the motivation, but also the stuff you do have to catch up. Besides this, his recovery is weighing on him. He didn't have a stress release thing. The strange thing is that kids do think that playing on a game console equals stress release, but as a parent, and probably some of you can related to this, we also see his stress level rising due to gaming.
Secondly he does follow a rather high education level. STEM is it. During the year he was thinking about changing directions. He did want to move into a sport direction, which was fine for us. But, but, yes there is always a but. In Belgium sport is offered at 2 levels. The P-level, which is almost the lowest level one can follow, and the A-level. A P-level sport is offered in our city. The problem with that is that when you graduated there aren't a lot of options left, probably you will be a monitor or a sport teacher at primary or high school Don't get me wrong, nothing wrong with that. But he is smart enough and so we do need to make sure that when he does finish high school, all options are still open. So, in a city nearby they do offer sport at A-level which he could follow. But he doesn't want to sit in a bus 45 minutes for going to school and 45 minutes back to home. So when he will pass he will probably just move on to the 4th year STEM/Applied sciences.
So, yes I am pretty nervous. He had some issues with some teachers this year. Was accused of extorting other students to get their homework, which was a false accusation be still will be kept in mind if they do need to deliberate him.

It is probably harder for them than for us when a high school. We didn't had some many distractions. The modern Swiss army knife, called a mobile phone is really a big distraction. Besides that the speed is much higher these days. Back in our days, the teachers had to write it all on the board. Nowadays the are just sharing a screen from their laptop. We need to have the time to write it all over, they just already do have all the info. So more stuff can be seen in one year.

The question in the title isn't as hard as it stands. While maybe he doesn't really deserve a 2 months school holiday, he will still get it. Stopping his holiday before it even has started would also kill ours. Also I do have the problem that I also did had to do a year over in high school. Also motivation problems and pretty rebellious in those days. Wasn't a teacher pet at all, maybe even more the nightmare. And I did end up okay. And I do have to take those absences into account. So, I will stay as calm as I can and we will see what grades he does get.

Still a pretty nervous day.

Cheers,
Peter